For over 20 years, Photoshop has been the image editor of choice for photographers around the world. Initially it was just about the only good option, leading to its use not only by work-a-day pros who value its extensive feature set, but by millions who would really rather have an easier-to-use and less-expensive alternative. With Adobe’s new “rent-only” policy for Photoshop, those users, along with new photographers looking for an image editor, the search for alternatives has an increased urgency. Fortunately Adobe itself is now providing a worthy option in the new Photoshop Elements 12. At less than $100, the program is affordable for most people, and is the most powerful version of Elements ever.

To find out whether Photoshop Elements should be your next version of Photoshop, and to discover why it received ExtremeTech’s Editors’ Choice award, read on for our hands-on review.

A mode for everyone

Elements offers three different modes, Quick, Guided, and Expert, that you can flip between at the click of a mouse. Initially I assumed I’d skip right to Expert mode and stay there, but some of the features in the Quick mode are great for productivity — especially the integrated Before and After display shown next to a sidebar of common image enhancement tasks. The innovative Guided mode serves two purposes. First, it is a great way to learn how to do more complex tasks in the program, and second it extends what you can do by yourself simply using the built-in commands. In many cases when I was trying to figure out how to achieve a particular effect, I found switching to Guided mode and looking for a recipe a faster solution than digging through the help files or searching the web.

My one gripe with the somewhat simplified UI that Elements offers is its lack of flexibility. Tool Options and other common commands are pinned to the very bottom of the Elements window, for example. On a large monitor like my primary 30-inch monster, that places them quite far away from the Tool icons and the rest of the commands they are used with.

Powerful image editing

Elements is chock full of most of the same filters and image editing commands you probably use in Photoshop. Most of the same plug-ins, including the popular Google-owned Nik suite, work just like they do in Photoshop. Missing are some of the advanced analytics and the 3D capabilities of Photoshop Creative Cloud, but most Photoshop users don’t need those anyway. Since the core software is from the Adobe Photoshop team, you get the same excellent color rendering and implementation quality that Photoshop users have come to expect. Many of the filters are either identical to their big brother versions, or very similar with slightly more limited options.

Early versions of Elements were crippled by having limited support for Layers, especially Adjustment Layers. In Expert mode, the latest version provides plenty of Layer capabilities — including Adjustment Layers, Layer Opacity and Blending Modes — enough to satisfy most users. Like many other pieces of Elements, when running in Expert mode the Layer palette is almost identical to the one in Photoshop. Layer Masks are also fully supported.

Similarly, Elements offers plenty of options for resizing, rotating, and otherwise fiddling with the shape and size of your image. It includes the notion of a project that can include multiple images that you can work on at once. Unlike Photoshop, though, Elements doesn’t fully support video files. You can organize them with Elements, but to edit them you’ll need its companion product, Adobe Premiere Elements. Elements also doesn’t support Smart Objects, which allow for non-destructive filters in Photoshop. For most users, Layers are a reasonable substitute, but if you like clicking your filters on and off or using the other features of Smart Objects, you’ll need to stick with Photoshop.

As a cheaper alternative to Photoshop, how does this compare to something completely free such as the GIMP?

http://geek.com/ sal cangeloso

Sit tight, more coverage coming ; )

Dozerman

Good. I don’t usually like to pay for software, but I have kind of become the go-to photographer for my family. It may just be worth it to spend a little money, assuming that the jump from GIMP to this is significant enough.

http://www.cardinalphoto.com David Cardinal

Gimp and Elements are two very different approaches to doing part of what Photoshop does, so it is tough to compare them. But like Sal said, “stay tuned.”

patti livernash

my step-dad recently got a stunning silver BMW 6 Series Convertible by working part time from a macbook air. site w­w­w.J­A­M­20.c­o­m

Dozerman

People who write these spambots should be forced to hack off their own head with a dull paper cutter.

Dozerman

As a cheaper alternative to Photoshop, how does this compare to something completely free such as the GIMP?

James Tolson

hmmm, as a user of photoshop, i still use a version from the late 90’s (serves me fine) as i find most software these days not just from adobe – BLOAT

http://geek.com/ sal cangeloso

You’re not at all alone. Almost every time I talk about photoshop I hear from someone who is quite happy with the version their running — usually ranging from CS2 down to the real holdouts you using something like Photoshop 6. I’d say you’re missing out on a lot of bloat, but also some really cool content aware tools and some legitimate speed/power gains that could help out certain situations.

Joe Bob Briggs

I know it’s Mac only, but what about Pixelmator?

http://www.cardinalphoto.com David Cardinal

Joe Bob — Obviously, solutions that work on at least Mac & Windows (and ideally Linux) rise to the top of our list, but there isn’t any reason we couldn’t at least look at Pixelmator. Do you use and/or like it?

Philip B. Menninger

How does this compare with photo editing software you can get from Serif?

http://www.cardinalphoto.com David Cardinal

Philip — As you’d probably expect, Elements is much more extensive and powerful than Serif’s PhotoPlus (or Google’s Picasa), but it is certainly a fair question whether any particular user needs the additional features. It might be interesting to try to assemble a comparison table.

kay

I use photoshop for making graphics on a page I manage, would I be able to make graphics with Photoshop Elements 12? (Such as putting an image inside of a word, layering texts and images, color/pattern overlay, ect.)?

I now use full photoshop, but still pop in to Elements 8 occasionally. What it did not do (that i would need or know how to do rather) was have cymk mode and layer mask function. I could erase around the image, but did not have the grace of the layer mask. See 12 has layer mask, so that is big improvement. Healing brush and spot healing brush are on 8…where the healing patch is terrific to use in full version. So if I need to I will get 12, maybe put on my laptop… thanks for the review. Looks like a real value.

Bruce ‘Rudy’ Phillips

I see exactly what I have been hoping Elements 12 could do – enable someone to create an action sequence photo from multiple shots (just like the above example shown with the woman with the umbrella walking up the hill). I’m so much of a beginner when it comes to photography & editing. The number one thing I am really wanting to do is create some skateboarding action sequence photos like: http://blog.michaelanthonymurphy.com/2013/08/action-sequence-photography-skatepark.html. I hope I can find a tutorial out there! Thanks!

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